


Half-Silvered Mirror

by etirabys



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh, Downbelow Station - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Master/Slave, Memory Loss, Mind Control, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 00:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30147951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etirabys/pseuds/etirabys
Summary: There are holes in his memory, but Damon knows the important things: Pell has been a Union station for all his life. Josh is his azi. The Merchanter Alliance forming out in the vast is not his responsibility.
Relationships: Damon Konstantin/Joshua Talley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Half-Silvered Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> If you're one of the people reading this fic because you know me but you haven't read the novel, I've written a summary / explainer here: https://etirabys.tumblr.com/post/646207842318221313

"They've done a number on you. I'm sorry we can't patch that. We don't have the facilities to process something this botched. No offense. We had to do a rush job on him as it was."

"That's fine. I don't want it patched."

"But it worries me, you understand? Your job won't be easy when you're this tangled up. He'll come out in twenty minutes, half-thinking he's J.D. Mowbray and you're Mowbray's azi, and he'll have the implants to roll with that and you won't. Are you sure you don't want a small dose of tranquilizers after all? Or even just a drink?"

"No."

:::

Damon walked out of Gabriel's office feeling pleasantly woozy from the currant ciders they'd had together. Fresh from Eldorado Station, thank god for reopened trade lines with the rest of Union. The brief Fleet occupation seemed like a distant nightmare. His azi trailed behind him. When they reached a lift Damon checked the time, trying to decide whether to go to the office or straight to bed. It wasn't too late but sleep was wise when he was this drowsy. "Blue sector," he told Josh, and yawned. "Home."

Unsmiling, Josh put in the instructions. Disquieting, that expression. Damon had been certified to supervise Alpha-level azis for years but felt tongue-tied around Josh, unsure what to do with him. And it was very important that Josh be satisfied, aligned internally to a degree no naturally raised human attained. He felt a lurch of guilt that such a high-class azi had been assigned to a man who had been putting off recertification for years. He said, "I know Gabriel and I have been talking about a precarious military situation – but external security isn't your job, you know. Don't let it keep you up at night."

"Yes, ser," Josh said quietly.

"You're doing very well," Damon said, trying to openly project his mindstate. Josh was better at reading body language than he ever would be – the best reassurance was the truth. "I'm proud of your work the past few weeks, which, god knows, have been hell on all of us."

To his quiet distress Josh seemed to go smaller at that. "Thank you."

Damon didn't know what to say. Some of the pleasant buzz dissipated. The lift door opened, and they walked to his apartment in silence.

For some reason he paused at the doorway after unlocking into his unit. He had a distant sense of entering some kind of dusty, abandoned place. He walked in and ran his finger over the kitchen counter, came away clean. Josh found time out of his day of being a political strategist and secretary to keep house. A feeling of rightness asserted itself once more.

Damon got ready for bed somewhat perfunctorily, and slid under the covers. Something tickled at him again. He frowned at the other side of the bed, missing an occupant.

He said, "Are you staying up for some reason?"

A shadow appeared at the door. "I – no," said Josh, glancing back at the clean-swept kitchen floor. His pants were on but his shirt was balled loosely in his hands, which flexed nervously on the fabric.

"You don't have anything on your plate that can't wait until the morning," Damon said patiently. "Come to bed."

Pause; obedience; warmth.

Damon squirmed around until the covers were right and lay on his side, looking at the carved profile of his azi. One of the most beautiful men he'd ever seen. He wondered sometimes if Josh were a bribe from Azov, but there was no reason for it to be – the Konstantins had faithfully served Union for decades, and Damon was only a second son. It was really Emilio that the higher-ups should cultivate, but circumstances were that Emilio was away and Damon was Stationmaster. Josh lay on his back, eyes closed, but after a minute he opened them and turned his head to stare back with nervous blue eyes.

Damon's cock twitched. He reached out and stroked down Josh's undershirt.

Josh made a surprised _nnngh_ and squeezed his eyes shut. He sometimes reacted strongly to the first touch and calmed afterwards. Damon kept petting him, dancing his fingers up and down over that warm solid body, until the azi's breathing evened out. A flush had crept over his face, visible even in the dim night light.

Damon sat up, deciding, and rolled Josh over onto his stomach. Josh was taller and stronger than Damon, but given the slightest push he'd do the rest of the work and fall into the position he thought Damon wanted. Damon pushed golden wisps of hair away from the nape of Josh's neck and mouthed at the skin, savoring the whimpers muffled into the pillow. One of life's great luxuries to have this man pinned underneath him. Without looking he pulled out a tube from the bedside cabinet and lubricated himself.

But when Damon pulled down Josh's underwear and started applying the excess to his anus, Josh's entire body went rigid, like he was on the verge of bucking and throwing Damon clear off the bed.

It was irritatingly difficult to put the brakes on this routine pleasure when the tip of his cock was a few inches away from Josh's hole. He said, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just –" Josh choked off into silence.

It was almost inconceivable that Josh wouldn't want this when Damon did. At least not if Damon had been doing his fucking _job_ , keeping his azi synchronized to his desires. His erection flagged. If he kept going now, with a distressed azi... he recalled he'd done it before with no ill effect, but it seemed highly unappetizing now. He rolled off Josh. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Let's go to sleep."

"No, please, I _can_ ," Josh said, scrambling onto his knees, briefs wrapped around his thighs. He was hard, the tip of his cock almost bouncing on his lower abdomen as he sprang up. "I just froze up for no reason. It's my fault. It's as you say. The Fleet blockade – it's stressful. I haven't been good at not thinking about it."

There was no such thing as something being an azi's fault. It was _Damon's_ job to keep Josh's head clear. A headache was descending on him – a weirdly light one, pounding without pain. He pulled his underwear up and did the same for Josh, giving him a kiss on the forehead. "Josh. Stop thinking right now."

Josh's breathing slowed immediately.

"Everyone has off days. It's not your job to let me fuck you every night." Actually, it kind of was, but Damon made the rules. "You're doing good work. I'm the one who's flagging on your upkeep. I want you to stop worrying and get enough sleep so we can get through our workload tomorrow. Let Azov handle the blockade. Let Gabriel handle internal security. And let me handle whether or not I fuck you. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," Josh said.

"I love you," Damon said fondly. "Good night."

"Ah," his azi said, sounding upset again, but the headache was intensifying – hangover setting in early, poor luck for him – so Damon responded inadequately by pulling Josh into a hug, burying his face into his hair, and falling asleep with shocking ease.

:::

He had no dreams.

:::

When Damon exited the shower the next morning, he discovered that there were bruises over his body. Fading, mottled yellow and green. He pressed one on his shoulder, testing. It stung. Gone too hard at the gym, he supposed. He was technically a Union reservist and occasionally brushed up on combat training, although the Konstantin name would always keep him out of the kind of fighting where it mattered. He strode back into his bedroom to pull out clothes from his drawers. Frowned, drew a little circle in the air with his nose. Picked up the undershirt on the bed and brought it to his face.

Apricot and spices.

He threw it across the bed and went blindly outside to the kitchen, where Josh was cooking breakfast. Damon went up behind him, slid his hands around Josh's body mid-torso, and rested his face against the back of Josh's head. No. Neck. The back of Josh's neck, all those fine pale hairs bending under a stray breath. Josh shivered. "I'm going to burn your omelette if you keep doing that."

Damon nosed at the knobs of Josh's spine, breathing him in.

"Damon?"

"I like the way you smell."

Josh's breath stuttered. "Oh. Good."

"Do me a favor. Take all my clothes – really, all of them – to the cleaner before you come into the office."

"That'll use up your washing credits for the month."

"That's fine."

"Okay," Josh said simply, turned the stove off, and turned around. "Anything you want."

Damon kissed him, lightly, mindful of yesterday's hiccup. This time nothing went wrong – Josh melted into him, erection nudging against Damon's hipbone from under an apron too small for him.

The station spun, familiar and right.

:::

The next week Damon found himself having to break routine, which had so far shuffled him over short distances between his apartment unit, his office, and Gabriel's office. The walk to the council meeting hall was much longer. Gabriel assigned him extra security for that trek. Even with that assurance, Damon had to prepare himself for it – he did not like being in public zones, the way people stared at him. Pell was a kind of wild animal under his responsibility that he cared for but also feared. He made public announcements but Josh handled communication into his office and filtered the memos that came to him.

He moved through the station as if he had a silencing field around him. People stopped talking to stare at him. Some of them looked hungry – wanting things they could not get without being close to power and favor. Others looked generally thin, tired. And there was fascination aimed at him that he did not understand.

When he passed through a concourse in green sector on the last leg of his walk to the meeting, someone shouted, "I hope the catamite they gave you for handing Pell over to vat meat was worth it, Konstantin!"

Two of Azov's men surged forward, but the crowd was already turning on the woman who had spoken. Damon smiled at it worriedly – he'd heard the words but they'd somehow bounced off his mind. He hadn't the least idea what they were fighting about, but chaos was bad. "What's happening?"

Josh said, shortly, "Fleet sympathizer. Don't worry about it. There aren't many anti-Unionists here since the supply lines opened."

It still seemed worrying – his fault – that there were anti-Unionists at all, but there was no time to think about it. The meeting was due to start in two minutes and could not proceed without him. He merged into a stream of people headed into the same hall, and took his father's seat at the head of the room.

The room was fuller than he remembered – councillors and the administrators, a handful with azis, and more of Azov's uniformed men lining the walls. When Azov himselfstrode in, Josh stood up from the seat to Damon's right without comment and sat down at Damon's feet. His side pressed up against Damon's calves.

Jon Lukas entered, sunken-faced, stared at Damon's seat and the golden-haired man kneeling next to him. A ghost of a smile flitted across his face before his azi, a tall woman, nudged him to his seat as the meeting started.

Damon followed the proceedings with a strange mix of clarity and confusion, interjecting when it made sense to. He followed perfectly the state of mining operations, and the construction of new sectors underway with the ore they sent back. Just as easily he could track the agricultural reports from Downbelow and balance the sum of that and in-station produce against the number of human bodies that needed feeding. But he did not understand the mood in the room, which was frenetic under the silence. He reacted to it by projecting confidence and efficiency, which was real; he knew Pell's needs and resources inside out. Every material problem could be dealt with in the short or medium term. He kept explaining this, and the room calmed, minute by minute.

When it was time to speak of Q – the last and heftiest item on the agenda – Damon stood up and laid out his proposal.

Stifled pandemonium, even before he was done. Damon saw Councillor Kressich try to rise and speak before one of Azov's men pulled him roughly back down into his seat. Longtime colleagues stared at him in shock. When Damon finished, a woman rose and objected, "We don't have enough psych staff to do that."

An astonishingly easy first question. "Azov has spare staff," Damon said. "We could process at least twenty people a day from Q. We'll need to train extra hands for the post-op care, but that can be done quickly enough – it's not complicated work."

Jacoby, an older lawyer he considered a colleague, stood up, and Damon's stomach tightened. Jacoby's eyes went once to Azov, then to Josh, and finally squarely met Damon's. "If done, this will go on the records as the most immoral thing Pell authorities have ever done," he said shortly. "Most of the worst criminals you're suggesting Adjusting are not severe recidivists. They do what they do due to circumstance. You are proposing, effectively, murdering people for the sake of creating –"

Damon looked at the golden crown of Josh's head as Azov rumbled, "Watch it."

"We cannot give them better," Damon said. He felt a wave of grief, and couldn't modulate his voice – it came out an unpolitical monotone. "We have no solutions, only problems. We need ag workers and mechanics and builders. We have resisted radical solutions for months. We can't afford to resist more."

"So send them to Union." Jacoby's eyes were hard. "I heard they're terraforming a new continent on Cyteen. Is there a gulag better suited?"

Union could not take the people of Q. Damon's mind slid off why. Azov's men were stirring behind Jacoby, and this worried him – he had to cut the discussion short before they went for Jacoby. "We're going to deal with this in-house," he said vaguely and pleasantly. "It is an unalterable constraint."

Kressich said, speaking out of turn, "The riots will be unspeakable when they find out."

"They won't riot," Damon said. "Azov's forces go in – take out the leaders. The hundred worst, all at once. _You'll_ cooperate in telling us who they are, Councillor Kressich. And separately we'll accelerate processing of the paperless, ensuring that – at least for a little while – the power vacuum won't immediately be filled by new leaders, since anyone who wants to make it out by random lottery will have their recent behavior checked."

Kressich's face was utterly pale. "And I? Am I to go back and lie to them about this?"

"You are a Union citizen starting today," Damon said flatly. "You do not have to return to Q. No one who might make an attempt on your life will remember you once they come out of the medical wards. That is – if you give us good information."

His motion passed, and the meeting ended. Gabriel took Kressich immediately into an adjoining office. Several people moved in the crowd towards Damon, and stopped. Damon, steady-eyed and steady-voiced while speaking, found that he could not meet any of their gazes. His head pounded.

"Get me out of here," he whispered to Josh.

Josh made it happen.

:::

Damon drifted in the steam room with a flask of port sitting in the corner, feeling distinctly that he was letting down his father.

He had never feared becoming Stationmaster. He had grown up seeing the job done, day to day, and never considered it an undoable one. But he had also been glad it would be his brother, not he, who would take the reins. It was a surprise to find himself here, and he admitted to himself that he wanted out.

He had stopped signing forms for the Adjustments. There were too many coming through his desk – it would take up too much time to go through every one of them, although he knew that once he had examined each one carefully. Gabriel had gotten the forms changed and now there was just one place per person, on the very last page, where he needed to place his stamp. The ink had gotten on the edges of his right hand – he rubbed at it, melancholy. A hundred minds wiped clean this past week, of more than two hundred murders. Q was pliant. After his reforms, main processing turned out thirty people every day who went straight for Union psychotherapy. Not Adjustment, more of a patch to help them adjust to life as Stationer labor. Normal measures could not deal with the trauma coming out of the refugee sector.

His left thumb worked faster at the skin of his hand. A stamp for mindwipes – psych profiles and treatment plans half-read. Angelo would frown.

Damon had enough to think about, but news was coming in from the vast about Fleet movement, and it insisted on percolating in the back of his head. It was Azov's business but he pushed past Azov's gentle discouragement to read the status reports. Fleet movement, and rumors of Merchanter coordination, deeper than had ever run before. Azov did not like to speak of it, and neither did Gabriel, although they spoke of it to each other. That bothered him. Merchanter politics affected Pell deeply, and it was his duty to track it. And at the same time he knew, deep down, that it _wasn't_ his business. He didn't have to think about it. His business was well circumscribed. Legal affairs. Agriculture. New construction. Industry. Food rationing. Q.

And Josh, outside, as mutedly miserable as he had been for the past month. It worried Damon. He'd spoken to Gabriel three times now about getting Josh reassigned to a more competent superior – but Gabriel was insistent that it was a good match. Had been a good match for years. And on his part – Damon liked Josh, was used to Josh. But Josh was unhappy, it was clear, and Damon just didn't have the skill to dig out the root cause and fix it. He had brought up reassignment to Gabriel again an hour ago during their daily meeting. Gabriel had told him in a low tone that Damon was still the best pick for Josh – that Josh would be miserable anywhere else. Would take significant psychological conditioning to fit to anyone else. And Damon had lost his temper and snapped, "Dammit, then, don't _I_ deserve an azi who doesn't make me feel as useful as a sack of industrial waste?"

He was pretty sure Josh had heard that.

It should have been the least of his problems, considering he'd effectively stamped twelve people's executions that afternoon. He unscrewed the flask of port, took another long sip, and considered the snippet _he'd_ heard from Josh's meeting with Gabriel afterwards – probably about the same issue – "...shouldn't be a problem if he's being too _good_ , is it? If anything it was the other thing we worried about – Mowbray's memories were the most suitable but Mowbray rode his azi hard. We thought you could handle that." Josh's unhappy little murmur of response.

Damon's mind kept catching on that fragment, trying to consider it, and failing. He fidgeted with his flask. _Mowbray_. It was a familiar name but he didn't know from where. He knew the full name, too – Jason Detchepare Mowbray. He couldn't make his mind up between thinking it was an odd name and thinking it was the most normal kind of name someone could have.

Distress built up, crossed some threshold, and triggered an action. He called out, "Josh."

Steam swirled out and Josh walked in. Long legs looked longer to a man half supine. Damon had a flash of looking at Josh's face, angel-blank and free of tension. Josh hadn't looked that unworried in recent memory. He couldn't remember when that was – when Josh had been first assigned to him? No, that wasn't right, they'd met when Josh was a teenager fresh out of Reseune training and he, Mowbray, was working somewhere else... some other station. He looked at Josh's tight, clouded face and ached.

"Sit down." The damp bench would stain the expensive gray slacks Damon liked to put his azi in, but not permanently. "Do you want some port?"

"I'm on duty."

"That's not what I asked."

Josh sucked his lower lip into his mouth briefly and looked at Damon like he was trying to guess the teacher's password. "Yes, I'd like some."

Damon passed him the flask and Josh took a swig. Damon said, "I'm sorry to circle back to this – I know I should leave it alone. But the Merchanter alliance paired with Fleet movement out there is worrying me."

The eyes darkened. Damon watched, fascinated by the man's beauty all over again. "It's unexpected, to be sure. But Merchanters don't play well together, you know that. Too disparate a group. It'll fall apart."

"You'd think so," Damon mused. "But their net is so tight that not a single ship has made it from Solwards here in the past two months. Quite a feat on his part. The man who put it together – Quentin?"

"Her," Josh said very softly. "It's a woman."

"Very well done. Pack of cats, Merchanters."

They sat in silence as the steam billowed. Josh plucked wretchedly at his sleeves. Damon said, "Oh, take it all off. I want you here for the next while and I don't know when I'm getting up."

Josh disappeared for a few minutes and returned, nude and breathtaking. Damon pulled him down to his side and ran a hand from shoulder to flank. "Scars," he said, bemused, over Josh's sharp inhale. He didn't remember those. His head was starting to prickle from the heat, and he adjusted the temperature. He hadn't seen Josh naked in a while, not since that one awkward night when Josh had tensed up under him. Then he blinked and the scars were normal – he could remember that same burn under his hands the most recent time he'd had fucked Josh in the office. But not his current office with the camel-hair carpet from Earth. It must have been the one he had before that. The neuralgic prickling worsened.

"Quentin," he repeated absently. "That's not right. It's Quen. The Merchanter who's joined forces with Mallory."

He bent over and put his forehead against his knees, suddenly breathing hard. The headache pulsed, a crown of pain receding and then crashing back like it was a sea and the moon hung over his head. The thing was, no one had told him her name. It had just come to him.

"Tell me I'm wrong," he said.

Josh was staring at him, fear palpable on his face. After a long pause, he said, "The name? You're right, it's Quen."

"Okay," Damon said into his knees. "Okay."

"This is my fault," Josh said, almost inaudibly, and took another gulp from the flask.

Somehow that settled him when nothing else had, gave him a clear next step. Damon waited until Josh had screwed the cap back on and set it down to get a grip in Josh's hair and pull him close, firm but not cruel, in a practiced gesture. He hadn't done anything like this in the past few weeks – nerves, he supposed, upon sensing the dynamic between them had changed in a way he didn't understand. But disinhibited, the old habits came back. Josh stared at him, half-draped over Damon's body. "It's not your fault," he said.

"No," Josh said shakily. His cock firmed up against Damon's thigh.

"Say it."

"It's not my fault."

"Nothing is your fault. I run this station. Azov runs defense. You and Gabriel give input. If something goes wrong you're as blameworthy as the computer that runs battle simulations. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Josh said, and buried his face in Damon's neck, in a weirdly jerky motion, as if he were going for it before his nerve broke. Over the few seconds he went almost completely limp.

Damon held him. For once he had done something right. This was how it was supposed to go. Warm, shivering, leggy heap of azi. And it was right, too, when Josh started to slide down him – a delicious full-body friction mediated by the condensation on their bodies, until he was kneeling between Damon's legs, chin above Damon's groin. 

Josh's irises were pale, thin rings when he looked up at Damon. "I've made you misread me about sex. I'm sorry. I'm still available for that – always have been. Let me make it up to you about the past few weeks."

Conscience pricked through the port-haze. "If this is because you heard me talk to Gabriel..."

"No." Josh's voice cracked slightly. "I want you. I want you to touch me and fuck me. I haven't been pleasing you and it – it hurts."

An azi didn't lie to his master. And it was easy to drink when he was parched. Damon wound his fingers through Josh's hair and pushed his face gently down.

:::

It wasn't clear when things definitively fell apart. The first sign was that Azov wasn't available for a routine meeting. After waspishly paying a visit to his office and finding it deserted, Damon returned his desk, at loss, and started going through his usual paperwork backlog. Josh, as usual, fielded comms into his office. At some point the strained urgency in Josh's low voice got to him and Damon raised his head. "Everything all right?" he said.

"Yes," Josh said tersely. "Just some unrest on the docks."

"Why?"

Josh said, carefully, "There's Fleet presence on the other side of Downbelow. And armed Merchanter ships, too. Hundreds of them. There are Fleet sympathizers on station, as you know, and they're – expecting to be taking control soon. Azov's on a carrier and left a protective cordon around the administrative sector. There's no threat to your immediate safety."

Anger rose in him, ineffectively quashed. "Why the hell am I hearing about this now?" Damon snapped.

"I'm sorry," Josh said. "It's not – it's under Azov's purview."

"It's damned well under my purview too if there's immediate threat to Pell."

"I know. But there's nothing we can do but sit and wait." Josh's face was anxious, voice soft. "I thought it was best not to distract you when you had all that work."

Damon got up, penitent, and placed a kiss on Josh's temple. "I'm sorry for snapping. You're right. Just – keep me updated."

Six hours later, Damon heard shouting outside. Josh opened the door a hair to scan the corridor and was immediately bowled over by two men – armored from the neck down, and armed. Damon registered that one of them was Jacoby. Josh backed up with his hands up at gunpoint, face expressionless.

Jacoby stared at Damon and said, "I want to know. Did they get you that deep in the head or are you acting?"

Damon said, almost too incredulous to be afraid, "The Fleet comes within sniffing distance and you play at revolt against Union?"

"This isn't a fucking Union station!" Jacoby barked. "Thousands of people on this station know it – your lab-grown zookeeper knows it – your brother knows it on Downbelow where they can't get at him. Your goddamn brother. Unless you forgot him, too? Don't you care that you can't get a direct line to him?"

Damon touched his aching temple. "No. Of course I remember Emilio."

"But they took your wife," Jacoby said, words bitter and incomprehensible. The tip of the second man's gun moved a little bit, drooping towards the ground, its holder distracted by the drama. Then Josh moved. He had nothing in his hand but a pen.

Moments later, Damon said numbly, "That was – very precise, Josh."

Josh's eyes were wet. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The camel-hair carpet was as long as Damon was, and sodden all over. "Jacoby was my friend."

"I know. Damon – we have to go."

"We need security personnel in here," Damon said stupidly.

"The hallway is empty, Damon. Azov withdrew most everyone suitable from station an hour ago. There's a full out battle outside." Josh looked at the floor. "Azov's losing."

Time rolled nauseously. "You said you'd keep me updated."

"I lied." Josh's words just as incomprehensible as Jacoby's. "You have to come with me, now."

There was no reason he should have obeyed. He did. The whole world had come undocked. Josh took his hand and led him first to a supply closet where he made Damon take off his suit jacket and put on thick worker overalls. Greased sanitation masks fished out of the laundry basket for both of them, secured around the face. They crossed through zones of roaring panic and zones of frozen terror and zones that were eerily empty, and reached the end of orange sector with no one giving them a second glance.

Josh applied both of their keycards to a lock that led to the docks, briefly opening it, but did not pass through. Instead Josh threw their cards down a disposal chute and doubled back with unerring certainty on a route that culminated in a row of empty cells that Damon dimly remembered having held refugees queued for Adjustment. Several were open – Damon followed Josh in like a sheep behind a Judas goat and watched Josh close the door. It locked with a lethal little clink.

Damon said, "You can't think this will hold them off. They'll ransack the station. If we wanted more steel between them and us we should have gone to my mother's unit."

Josh didn't answer, merely gestured at Damon to sit down on the single cot. Damon folded onto it. Josh knelt in front of him and cuffed Damon's hands behind his back, running the chain around a rail in the headboard, so neatly that Damon didn't register what had happened for several whole seconds. He had to replay the glint of metal appearing suddenly from Josh's pocket and its disappearance from view, just as rapid, paired with cold on his wrists. "Josh," he said.

Josh said, "You've always been my prisoner. I need you to understand that. They will, when they arrive – all you have to do is not argue too much."

This made no sense, so Damon spoke as if Josh hadn't. "It's _Mallory_ out there, she doesn't have a splinter of mercy in her. She'll kill all Unioners who were high up."

"I know."

"They won't care if you're azi, Josh! They don't understand what that _is_. They'll kill you just the same."

The outline of Josh's face flexed slightly as he clenched his jaw. Tears were running down his face. "Shouldn't you worry about yourself?"

"I am," Damon said with feeling, "quite worried about myself. But it seems harder to convince you on that front when you've just strapped me to a iron bed in the face of invasion."

Josh actually laughed. "What, so you just gave up?"

Deceptively relaxing. Years of that beautiful laugh, in between slow kisses under close and filtered starlight. Years of wheeling around Tau Ceti and barely noticing it for the kissing and the joy of work done together. Leaving Reseune with his new azi and breaking him in for the first time in a ridership. The heart-leap of seeing _Estelle_ on the docking queue; apricot perfume. His head hurt, and this time the wrongness went deeper than the physical: he was getting disorienting flashes of anxiety and deep loss and radiant happiness all at once. He had to duck his head down again and breathe slow and deep. He managed to say, "Something like that. We both know there's something wrong with me. I just can't – think through what it is."

Josh came and knelt at his feet, resting his cheek against Damon's thigh. "I promise, the Fleet will fix it. Quen will make them. And then you'll understand."

"Understand what?"

Josh's hand curled around one of his, clamped by steel behind his back. "All I wanted was to keep you alive."


End file.
